


Solar Flares

by EarthtoEarth_AshestoAshes_DusttoDust



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Brief mention of homophobia, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Humor, Rarepair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:13:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21825727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthtoEarth_AshestoAshes_DusttoDust/pseuds/EarthtoEarth_AshestoAshes_DusttoDust
Summary: Lobelia Sackville-Baggins (not Baggins yet) has accompanied Bilbo Baggins all the way to the doorstep of the Lonely Mountain. And inside as well, afterall, he needs to be kept alive if she's going to marry him and get Bag-End one day.Then things go awry. Oh dear.
Relationships: Smaug (Tolkien) & Lobelia Sackville-Baggins
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Solar Flares

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rakketyrivertam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rakketyrivertam/gifts).



The dragon purred in a rumbley sort of way. It was a sound too low to hear, but one you could feel in the soles of your feet through to the ends of your hair. It could be described like the sound of an eruption of a solar flare might make. That is, if a solar flare made sound. Out there in the depths of space such cosmic phenomenon were as noiseless as everything else that drifted in the vast abyss. Had Lobelia been aware of the phenomenon, she might have described it that way.

Of course, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins (not a Baggins _quite_ yet, but she would be soon) didn’t particularly care about the stars. No, she was more concerned with tangible things, like the quality of fruit at market, the shine of silverware and which of The Shire’s bachelors had the best Smial for her future reign as a married hobbit. She couldn’t remember quite when she’d first set foot in Bag-End, but ever since she’s seen the polished wood paneling, the many hooks for guests, the rooms for clothes, and the _sparkling_ array of silverware on display, she’d had her heart set on the place. As many knew, once she had her mind set there was no stopping her. Not even the greatest astronomers in Gondor would have been able to pry her focus off of Bag-end, had they even in their most drunken moments conceived of solar flares. The famous stubborn focus of the Sackvilles hadn’t skipped her over. As it was said in the Shire: “the Sackvilles got what the Sackvilles wanted” even if it wasn’t _strictly_ by the books, as you know.

Perhaps, it was a bit of a stretch to say Lobelia would have compared a _dragon_ to the sun at all. Certainly it was an apt description. But as a child- to the disappointment of her agemates especially Bilbo, and to the pride of her family- Lobelia had a vicious sort of pragmatism that had persisted well into adulthood. That is to say, she wouldn’t think much of a dragon at all, much less facing one.

When the magnificent pile of glittering gold had first moved, Lobelia _should_ have been clued in on the utter enormity of what she was facing, literally and figuratively. The last descendent of The Great Fire Drakes of the North was no shortstop to his name, though tiny compared to his lineage. That ancestry included Ancalagon the Black, who was the greatest among his kind, and larger than the mountains that bore him, larger than the entire mountain _range_ that had roofed Angband. Each of those mountains made the one Smaug currently reside in look like a _hill_.

Even though Lobelia neither understood nor conceived of such a magnificently vile pedigree, she knew he was dangerous. It was Bilbo who had toed the gold that had first awakened it, it’s growl vibrating through the piles with the jingle of countless valuables. Bilbo, who’d vanished in the burst of fire right after, the force of which knocked her off her feet. The Dragon’s infernal breath had seemed to shake the world apart.

Then everything had gone quiet and dark, and Lobelia’d had half a mind to go creeping back to the dwarves. They didn’t much like her- that is to say they didn’t like her much at all- and the feeling was mutual. All she’d done was was try to stop Bilbo from dying, so as to preserve her future Smial for _her_ thank you very much, and keep any wild breelander’s hands off him. Unfortunately, this ‘adventure’ had revealed exactly _the kind_ of hobbit Bilbo was. Lobelia had never approved of that kind. Bilbo didn’t care. Now that they’d spent this long in company of one another, Bilbo didn’t seem like the type to settle down either, as a proper gentle hobbit with a wife and a gaggle of children. Lobelia could safely move her prospects to his cousin and heir, Otho.

Once she got back that is. Given what they thought of her, the dwarves might just blame her for Bilbo’s death and kill her themselves.

“I can smell you little _thief_. Did you _ththth_ think the darkness _sss_ would hide you from me?” Smaug the Gigantic, Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities hissed.

“How rude!” Lobelia exclaimed in a high voice. Smaug, terror of the northern kingdoms, reared his head back.

“We haven’t even been introduced and here you are calling me a thief to my face! _Hmph_.” Lobelia said.

“ _Hmph_?” Smaug, the largest dragon alive (as there were none else left) said.

“Where are your manners!” Lobelia demanded. Smaug circled around between pillars, in the same langorous speedy way that snakes did when they caught their prey. The heat from his body warmed even the gold between Lobelia’s feet as he curled around to face her.

“Where are my manners _sss_ indeed,” Smaug said, and abruptly reared up, showing off his wings and the bejeweled waistcoat that was his pride and glory, “ _I am SMAUG The MAGNIFICENT, Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities, the Fire of the North and the Bane of Dwarves, Elves, and Men!_ ” A proclamation which managed to set even the great Lobelia Sackville-Baggins; not Baggins really, and perhaps never now that Bilbo was dead, well, now was hardly the place to plot out which of the Bagginses would secure her inheritance. Perhaps Otho…

“What’s _sss_ your name?” Smaug hissed, towards her, and his foul breath smelling of decaying pony, man and sheep raced towards her.

“I-I. Am LOBELIA SACKVILLE BAGGINS.” She declared. Smaug grinned.

“ _Bagginssss_ now that _isss_ an interesting name.” Smaug said and Lobelia felt like she had lost, between the two of them somehow. A ridiculous notion, as introductions were hardly a competition. (What she didn’t know, was Smaug indeed had won, as dragons are great manipulators of the mind, and to tell one your true name freely, is to give them power over you. It’s the second-worst thing you can do if you meet one, besides looking into its eyes. Poor Nienor.)

“Would you offer me some tea?” Lobelia said, shrugging off her own unease. Smaug fixed one great eye on her and Lobelia wondered, for the first time in her life, if she really was in over her head.

“I would, but my great talons would never be able to manage it.” He held up one large hand, bigger than a house! And truly, those talons, pointed like a harpoon and sharper than a thousand spears, were much more suited to killing than for making tea. Morgoth would be proud. Lobelia remembered how soft she was compared to a dragon, and that the rust colored stains on his claws were not, in fact, rust.

“Can I make you tea?” She said. Smaug blinked. Lobelia blinked back. Smaug blinked again. Lobelia blinked after that. This went on and on like that, until the dragon made up his mind.

“I would very much like some tea.” The Terror of the Northern Kingdoms decided. Lobelia nodded.

“Well then, will you show me were it’s stored?” She said. Smaug tilted his head, very much like a confused dog, but even Lobelia knew it was a stupid idea to tell him that.

“I don’t know.” Smaug said. “I suppose it’s somewhere. Dragons don’t have much use for tea.” They went off together in search of tea.

When the dwarves next saw Lobelia, they found her serving tea to a dragon, and ran off to call her the dragon’s whore. So that was that. Unfortunately, how their story ends only they know. Lobelia told Smaug all about Bilbo’s hobbit-hole, and the two got along so well she actually thought about bringing him back to the Shire. Then she thought about all the hobbits getting eaten, and Smaug going between them burning everything to the ground, gobbling them all up like helpless rabbits, and digging up all of the Smials, and she found she wasn’t entirely heartless after all. However, Smaug seemed dead set to go to the Shire, so Lobelia resolved herself to get very, very, very lost on the way there (not hard- she’d never looked at a map, and consequently had very little idea where she was anyways.) So Smaug took off with her in his claws, or tucked behind his ear as some stories claim, and neither have ever been seen since.


End file.
